wfn.org | Saturday worship service inspires servant people

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org>]

Note #6103 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

1-July-2000
GA00154
				
	Saturday worship service inspires servant people									
	by Jane Hines

LONG BEACH, July 1--A large crowd of commissioners and visitors started the
last day of the 212th General Assembly with an encouraging word heard from
Duncan Hanson, who brought the message.

     It was based on Matthew 16:18, that familiar passage in which Jesus
establishes his church on Peter, the rock.  Flawed as Peter might have been,
flawed as we may be, the word for today was one of encouragement,
illustrating how we may all be used by God as servants to bring about His
purpose, even though we may not understand what it is.  "God has chosen
rocks, servants of unity, who are even now counseling, reconciling, praying
and listening," Hanson told the congregation.

    "It is the nature of God to choose people whose qualifications may not
seem evident to the rest of us....the foolish, the weak, the tired," the
preacher of the day assured the people who gathered in Long Beach.
	
	He told them to go home and ponder Matthew 16:18 in the light of what the
Assembly has said this week.  "We are a church that needs to find some new
ways to live out our unity," he said.  "The last word belongs to God," he
assured them.

     Today's music was provided by the choir from St. Andrew's Presbyterian
Church of Newport Beach, Calif., directed by Larry K. Ball.  Duncan Hanson
is Europe coordinator, Worldwide Ministries Division, Louisville.

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